The Three Milkskteers.

The sun has been shouting it’s glory around here again, finally. The pale blue of the sky has been so amazing to look at. The rain and dreariness seems to have wandered away and fallen to their death off some cliff somewhere. The result is beautiful days. The trees are in leaf and the birds are singing. The early spring wildflowers have shot up from the earth and are blooming. They seem to be trying to drown out the sun and sky by competing against them in Nature’s Miss Spring Competition. The forest smells alive, as it’s fragrance mixes with that of the wisteria over the back patio and the lilacs growing all around the house.

My days too have changed just like the forest and the earth herself for the start of a new season. Now I get up at the butt crack of dawn. I get myself outside usually still in my pajamas. I greet the new friends we went to Maine, to collect last Sunday. Three lovely ladies. All of them adorable and sweet, all of them, full of milk. I can’t use cow milk. I become quite sick due allergies to the protein. Goats however, are of a different protein! One I am NOT allergic to! So, every morning, I am now up at the butt crack of dawn, so I can milk three goats before breakfast.

The goats have very sweet personalities. They are super cute. They are registered and each one has a name. Cinnamon, is the oldest, then there is Haley, with the pretty white marking on one side, and finally Byng, who fights milking. She still gets milked though. It is in her best interests to get milked. If she over fills it can cause her very real physical damage. So getting her on the milking stand eating her sweet feed while I squeeze it out of her drop by drop is the best thing for her. I milk these girls twice a day. Then we take the milk inside where we pasteurize it in a double boiler on the stove.

Fresh, goat milk tastes similar to cow milk. The goaty tang we all associate with goat dairy comes later after it has sat about for a bit. Early on it’s flavor is lovely. Especially that of Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats, as they were bred for milk highly similar to cow milk in flavor.

Milking right now, is a bit of a mess….. We just milk outside behind the house on the milking stand. Getting down low enough takes some contortions. Then they decide to drop all their weight onto your milking hand….. Or they kick over the bucket…. Or they kick you…. Or they mock you while they decline to get on the milking stand…. Or you have to chase them down to put them on the stand….. Right now the whole business is chaos. It is also new. So it takes a bit more time than it should. We are starting to make notes on how to build the system and make it work optimally so milking can be a shorter more comfortable and less heavy activity.

These three, will produce for years to come. Later in the fall we will pick up one more goat, a buck. In November, he will do his job so in the spring again, we can have milk.

So what is goat milk good for??? Welllll…. pasteurized, it’s good to eat in different ways. I got a modern jar butter churn with a “spinner” inside. I rotate the handle connected to the top the spinner spins. Eventually I have butter. I also got the necessaries for making cheese! We are going to bring up the ice cream maker for ice cream. I will use it with lye to make soap, and earlier today, I was feeding it to some plants out in the garden. The dog also has enjoyed it. Dr. Farmer Moomin, is adding it to his coffee…. I was going to see how it does mixed up into some shampoo or conditioner. There are an alarming number of uses for this milk. The best part of it is, now that the milk at the grocery store, is no longer regulated with mandated testing to ensure it’s safety, we will never again be reliant on such an unsafe product.

Cinnamon, on her milking stand. One of the other two behind her mocking us.



The other day, I made for mother’s day, brunch for my mum and grandma, vegan strawberry muffins from self milled einkorn flour and maple sugar, and vanilla extract made here from vanilla beans and bourbon. I substituted fresh, pasteurized, goat milk for the milk the recipe called for. They were absolutely amazing. I will be using goat milk now anywhere milk is called for in a recipe.

I am truly amazed at how changed life is because of these new friends we have brought to the homestead.
I look forward to a future of chaos and goat hilarity every morning and evening going forward.
Thank you for reading
Amanda of Wildflower Farm